


Echoes (Redux)

by txtmstrjoe



Category: V (1983)
Genre: Brainwashing, Dreams and Nightmares, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-11-22 23:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20882375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/txtmstrjoe/pseuds/txtmstrjoe
Summary: "Echoes (Redux)" is an embellished, realistic retelling of events from "V: The Final Battle." Set right after L.A. resistance leader Juliet Parrish is captured, "Echoes (Redux)" follows her story and how it is interwoven with those of Mike Donovan and Diana. Each character's struggles finds echoes in the others' lives.





	1. Waking To A Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being captured and taken up to the Mother Ship, Juliet Parrish finds herself in an ominous situation.

**PROLOGUE **

You gasp as you wake up.

_Wha..? What’s going on?_

You notice you’re hyperventilating, gulping in air with greed. You feel as if your heart is about to burst out of your chest, radiating a dull ache and making every frenzied beat send a palpable echo in your ears like a jackhammer gone berserk.

_Try to relax._

You close your eyes, willing yourself to slow your breathing. You force yourself to inhale through your nostrils, then exhale much more slowly through your lips. You notice that the air has a bit of an odor and taste you can’t identify.

It takes you more than a minute to feel like you’ve caught your breath, and when you finally do, you open your eyes again. That’s when you realize everything you see seems to warp and distort. You look all around you, and some of the walls surrounding you seem to be changing colors – yellow to orange to white – in random patterns. You look directly in front of you, and you see a shape that, when you stare at it, seems to resolve into what looks like a shadowy reflection of yourself.

_Where am I?_

You don’t remember how you got to where you are now. You also wonder why you’re somehow on your feet if you’ve just woken up.

And that’s when you realize to your horror you are almost completely naked. The only parts of you that aren’t exposed are the bottoms of your feet, which you find are sheathed in a very thin, form-fitting material not too dissimilar from no-show socks.

Your instincts scream at you to try to run and hide, but you find it impossible to even move your feet from where they are planted. Panic attacks you, and you feel your heart rate spike again, particularly when you realize you can’t even lift your feet from where they are planted. 

Your teeth then start to chatter, and your body goes into uncontrollable shivering tremors. A part of you understands the obvious: You’re naked, so of course you’re shivering.

But it’s more than that.

_It’s so cold in here._ You hear yourself whimper, not just from the coldness of this place you find yourself in, but at least just as much from the escalating humiliation, vulnerability and distress you feel.

You cross your arms in front of your chest, tucking your hands into your armpits. You can’t believe how cold your skin is.

_How did this happen? _

_How did I get here?_

_Think. Concentrate._

So you try to piece together the puzzling kaleidoscope of shifting images of memories and thoughts and emotions and sensations flooding your mind.

The effort to do so tortures you with a burst of pain in your brain with each conscious attempt to think.

But even as you struggle to recall everything that has happened in the last few hours, random images of faces and places and colors and shapes coalesce and transition from clarity to inscrutability, shifting and merging into each other as the moments pass from one to the next. To your horror you have no control over the things you see in your mind’s eye. As all these images pass before your mind’s eye, everything you see is as vivid as it can be, even if you experience each individual image for just the briefest moment before it passes away and transforms into something else.

And as you see all these images, your mind is inundated with voices and sounds and noises. As if by instinct you know that all these are sounds that have left their residues in your memories, and now all of them are playing back for you to hear, individually and yet also all at once. It is both cacophonous noise all mushed together and a symphonic blending of sounds, with each part distinct and easy to separate from the rest. You wonder how this experience is even possible.

While you see and hear all these things, you feel your entire body come alive with sensation, as if every nerve was on overdrive, overloading your brain not just with sensory stimuli of the current moment, but mere memories of physical sensations too.

Every cut that has made you bleed, every bruise that has ever left its mark on your being along with the tell-tale signals of pain, every touch you’ve given or received, every strain of effort your muscles have exerted, every taste that has ever passed your tongue, even every odor you’ve ever smelled – all of these that you can remember and others that you’d forgotten long ago come alive again in your mind, resonating through every fiber of your being.

As you stand there, experiencing all this, you feel the weight of unseen eyes looking at you, watching you.

And you _hate_ the feeling.

So you close your eyes, as if doing so would shield you and render you invisible from those unseen eyes. As you do, even more images, sounds and sensations fill your head and come alive for you to re-live.

You see your fingers dig into the side of the face of a man dressed in red; you feel part of his skin give, and you hear the gasps of a crowd as you pull down and reveal the reptilian scales underneath. You don’t know why, but reliving this experience gives you a flash of euphoria.

Then the euphoria gives way to a rush of fear as you find yourself in a fierce firefight, exchanging salvos with soldiers clad in red uniforms and ominous black helmets.

You feel your heart surge as you hear the crash of breaking glass, then a massive lurch as the vehicle you’re in, an ambulance, leaps over a curb, and finally the noise of metal tearing and more glass shattering.

The next thing you know, your right cheek explodes in pain as it gets backhanded by a woman in a red uniform, and the taste of your own blood fills your mouth.

You then see a white wall right in front of you, and you feel your arms stretched high above your head, your wrists held tight by cuffs. You feel large, strong hands remove all of your clothes, then fingers push and twist deep inside the most intimate parts of you despite your every attempt to resist their entry, and finally a declaration that you’re not hiding any contraband.

Then you feel the ice-cold spray of high-pressure jets of water pelting your skin like a million frigid needles drench every inch of you, after which you feel the sting of real pinpricks into your neck as someone you don’t see presses something against your skin.

All these pieces of memories flash into your mind, all in just a couple of seconds.

You whimper again, not understanding what’s happening. You just know that you’re a prisoner of the moment, of every moment you’re living, of every moment you’ve ever lived.

Indeed, the only coherent thing that you can understand is: You’re afraid.

Afraid like you’ve never been.

Afraid because you are naked and vulnerable.

Afraid of what they’ll do to you.

Afraid of what they’re doing to you.

Afraid because you somehow know they can do whatever they want to you, even if you don’t know what it is they are going to do to you.

Afraid of how much it’s all going to hurt.

Afraid that you are going to die soon.

So you open your eyes and look up at the ceiling of the room you’re standing in, your vision still warped and unclear, not really understanding anything beyond your own growing fear. You hug yourself tighter, your arms crisscrossed over your chest and your legs squeezed together in an attempt to preserve some dignity in the face of the humiliation brought on by your nakedness mixing in with this terror.

And then you hear a man’s voice, with that distinctive Visitor trill, echo in your head.

“What is your name?”

You shut your eyes.

Something inside you tells you to ignore the voice.

And something else compels you to answer.

But you hear the voice and the question again.

“What is your name?”

You bite your lip, hold your breath, still not wanting to answer. You hear yourself moan, betraying a new, growing pain from somewhere behind your eyes as you try to resist the urge to answer.

Eventually, though, you have to breathe again.

When you do so, to your horror, you answer.

“Juliet Parrish.”


	2. Waiting Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike Donovan's conscience gnaws at him as he wonders what has happened to Julie.

**CHAPTER 1**

Mike Donovan sat on his small cot and glanced at his watch. The digits blinked “12:35.”

It had been just around three hours since he and the Los Angeles resistance group returned to their headquarters after their biggest op yet. Somehow they’d managed to infiltrate the Los Angeles Medical Center and crash the Visitors’ grand gala. Their leader, Juliet Parrish, unmasked the Visitors’ Supreme Commander, John, and revealed the aliens’ true reptilian nature in front of a global television audience.

However, in the mad scramble to escape the hospital, Juliet got separated from the rest of the group.

Right now, nobody knew where she was or what happened to her.

_Is she even alive? _Mike thought.

A small noise made him look up. Elias Taylor, one of the group’s first-ever members, tiptoed through the doorway into Donovan’s tiny quarters.

“Anything?” Mike asked.

Elias’ frown spoke volumes. “The Bernsteins haven’t seen nor heard from her. Neither have any of the other safehouses.”

Mike rubbed his forehead. “I’ll stay up and wait, just in case.” He looked up at Elias. “You get some shut-eye.”

“You sure? Why don’t you nod off for a while. You look exhausted, man.”

“I don’t think I can get any sleep anyway.” He closed his eyes. “Not after making that decision.”

When Donovan opened his eyes again, he saw sympathy in Elias’ eyes, and a tinge of guilt. Elias, along with Robert Maxwell, convinced him to leave Julie behind when she got separated from the main rebel group. She had decided to provide cover fire while the group made its planned escape up a deactivated elevator shaft.

“Look, man,” Elias said, “it was the only call to make. Julie herself always said we can’t sacrifice everything for just one person, no matter who it is – “

“I don’t know,” Mike said, unconvinced. “I just hate not knowing what happened to her.”


	3. Under Surveillance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it shuts down for the night, Juliet Parrish's Los Angeles resistance group doesn't realize it is being watched closely by an unknown party.

**CHAPTER 2**

“Radio check. Shadow to Eagle Eye, Shadow to Eagle Eye, do you copy?”

A figure clad in black pushed in his earpiece, adjusting it to hear the quiet voice coming through. “Solid copy, Shadow.”

Some static crackled through. “0040 sit-rep.”

“Looks like they’re shutting down for the night.”

Silence came through the earpiece before another burst of static. “That’s a weird play. No sign of evac?”

“None that I can tell.”

“These guys are amateurs!” said Shadow through Eagle Eye’s earpiece.

“They are.”

“Don’t they know they’re in danger?”

“No kidding. I’m sure you’ve already heard from Intel that LAPD’s already given the lizards Pascal’s info, that he’s the most likely person to have made the forged passes.”

“So it’s only a matter of time before Pascal gets picked up.”

“That’s a safe bet. I mean, if these guys found him – “

“It’s just a matter of time before the Visitors get to him.”

More silence, then Shadow spoke again. “Why not just go down there, then, and let them know what’s up?”

Eagle Eye was silent for a moment, thinking. Then he said, “No, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“These people will shoot before they ask any questions, after what happened tonight.”

“Hmm. I never thought of it like that,” Shadow said. “I bet they’re all jumpy.”

“Wouldn’t you be? We’ve got to let things play out, go according to plan. If their luck holds, we’ll get to them before the lizards eventually do.”

“What if,” Shadow started to say, “what if the Visitors beat us to the punch?”

Eagle Eye thought about the question for a moment, then said, “Then I guess they’re S.O.L., and we move on.” He yawned. “You want to take this shift, or should I?”

“I’ll take this shift. Sounds like you need the rest more than I do.”

“OK. Wake-up call at 0200 hours. Then I’ll take over.”

“Sounds good, brother. Radio silence on your mark until 0200 hour wake-up call.”

Eagle Eye looked at his watch, waiting for the next minute to start. As it did, he called, “Mark. Radio silence until 0200 hours. Eagle Eye out.”


End file.
